UPON PHILIP NYE'S THANKSGIVING BEARD.
A BEARD is but the vizard of a face,
That nature orders for no other place;
The fringe and tassel of a countenance,
That hides his person from another man's;
And, like the Roman habits of their youth,
Is never worn until his perfect growth;
A privilege, no other creature has,
To wear a natural mask upon his face,
That shifts its likeness, every day he wears,
To fit some other person's characters;
And by its own mythology implies,
That men were born to live in some disguise.
This satisfied a reverend mau, that cleared
His disagreeing conscience by his beard.
H' had been preferred i' th' army, when the church
Was taken with a Why not?† in the lurch;
When primate, metropolitan, and prelates,
Were turned to officers of horse, and zealots,
From whom he held the most pluralities
Of contributions, donatives, and salaries;
Was held the chiefest of those spiritual trumpets,
That sounded charges to their fiercest combats,
But in the desperatest of defeats
Had never blown as opportune retreats;
Until the Synod ordered his departure
To London, from his caterwauling quarter,
To sit among 'em, as he had been chosen,
And pass, or null things, at his own disposing;
* See vol. ii. p. 222, note *.
† To be taken with a why-not?' is to be taken suddenly, or by surprise, in a way that cannot be evaded. Nares describes it as 'an arbitrary proceeding; as that of a person who gives no reason for his acts, but the mere captious question, Why not?' It occurs also in Hudibras.-See vol. i. p. 222.
138 UPON PHILIP NYE'S THANKSGIVING BEARD.
Could clap up souls in Limbo with a vote,
And for their fees discharge, and let them out;
Which made some grandees bribe him with the place
Of holding forth upon Thanksgiving-days,
Whither the members, two and two abreast,
Marched to take in the spoils of all-the feast;
But by the way repeated the oh-hones
Of his wild Irish and chromatic tones,
His frequent and pathetic hums and haws,
He practised only t' animate the cause,
With which the sisters were so prepossessed,
They could remember nothing of the rest.
He thought upon it, and resolved to put
His beard into as wonderful a cut,
And, for the further service of the women,
T'abate the rigidness of his opinion;
And, but a day before, had been to find
The ablest virtuoso of the kind,
With whom he long and seriously conferred
On all intrigues that might concern his beard;
By whose advice he sate for a design
In little drawn, exactly to a line;
That, if the creature chance to have occasion
To undergo a thorough reformation,
It might be borne conveniently about,
And by the meanest artist copied out.
This done, he sent a journeyman sectary, H' had brought up to retrieve, and fetch, and To find out one that had the greatest practice, To prune, and bleach the beards of all fanatics, And set their most confused disorders right, Not by a new design, but newer light; Who used to shave the grandees of their sticklers, And crop the worthies of their conventiclers; To whom he showed his new-invented draught, And told him how 'twas to be copied out.
Quoth he, 'Tis but a false and counterfeit, And scandalous device of human wit,
That's absolutely forbidden in the scripture,
To make of any carnal thing the picture.'
Quoth th' other saint, 'You must leave that to us,
T' agree what's lawful, or what scandalous:
For, till it is determined by our vote,
"Tis either lawful, scandalous, or not;
Which, since we have not yet agreed upon,
Is left indifferent to avoid or own.'
Quoth he, 'My conscience never shall agree
To do it, till I know what 'tis to be;
For, though I use it in a lawful time,
What, if it after should be made a crime?
'Tis true, we fought for liberty of conscience,
'Gainst human constitutions in our own sense:
Which I'm resolved perpetually t' avow,
And make it lawful, whatsoe'er we do;
Then do your office with your greatest skill,
And let th' event befal us, how it will.'
This said, the nice barbarian took his tools,
To prune the zealot's tenets, and his jowls;
Talked on as pertinently, as he snipped,
A hundred times for every hair he clipped;
Until the beard at length began t' appear,
And re-assume its antique character,
Grew more and more itself, that art might strive,
And stand in competition with the life;
For some have doubted, if 'twere made of snips
Of sables, glued and fitted to his lips;
And set in such an artificial frame,
As if it had been wrought in filograin,
More subtly filed and polished than the gin
That Vulcan caught himself a cuckold in;
That Lachesis, that spins the threads of fate,
Could not have drawn it out more delicate.
But being designed and drawn so regular,
Ta scrupulous punctilio of a hair,
Who could imagine that it should be portal
To selfish, inward-unconforming mortal?
And yet it was, and did abominate
The least compliance to the church or state;
And from itself did equally dissent,
As from religion, and the government.*
REPARTEES BETWEEN CAT AND PUSS AT A CATERWAULING.
IN THE MODERN HEROIC WAY.†
T was about the middle age of night,
When half the earth stood in the other's light; And sleep, death's brother, yet a friend to life, Gave wearied nature a restorative;
* The following fragment, found with several others on the same subject amongst Butler's MS., is printed by Mr. Thyer:
This reverend brother, like a goat,
Did wear a tail upon his throat,
The fringe and tassel of a face,
That gives it a becoming grace,
But set in such a curious frame,
As if 'twere wrought in filograin;
And cut so ev'n, as if 't had been
Drawn with a pen upon his chin.
No topiary hedge of quickset
Was e'er so neatly cut, or thick set;
That made beholders more admire,
Than China-plate that's made of wire;
But being wrought so regular
In every part and every hair,
Who would believe it should be portal,
To unconforming-inward mortal?
And yet it was, and did dissent
No less from its own government,
Than from the church's, and detest
That which it held forth and professed;
Did equally abominate
Conformity in church and state;
And, like an hypocritic brother,
Professed one thing, and did another;
As all things, where they're most professed,
Are found to be regarded least.
+ The modern heroic way' was the way of the rhymed plays, introduced and brought into fashion by Dryden. The close play of con
When Puss, wrapt warm in his own native furs,
Dreamt soundly of as soft and warm amours;
Of making gallantry in gutter-tiles,
And sporting on delightful faggot-piles;
Of bolting out of bushes in the dark,
As ladies use at midnight in the park;
Or seeking in tall garrets an alcove,
For assignations in th' affairs of love.
At once his passion was both false and true,
And the more false, the more in earnest grew.
He fancied that he heard those amorous charms,
That used to summon him to soft alarms,
To which he always brought an equal flame,
To fight a rival, or to court a dame:
And, as in dreams love's raptures are more taking,
Than all their actual enjoyments waking,
His amorous passion grew to that extreme,
His dream itself awaked him from his dream.
Thought he, What place is this? or whither art
Thou vanished from me, mistress of my
But I had her in this very place,
Here, fast imprisoned in my glad embrace,
And, while my joys beyond themselves were rapt,
I know not how, nor whither thou'rt escaped:
Stay, and I'll follow thee.'-With that he leaped
Up from the lazy couch on which he slept;
And, winged with passion, through his known purlieu,
Swift, as an arrow from a bow, he flew,
Nor stopped, until his fire had him conveyed,
Where many assignations h' had enjoyed;
Where finding, what he sought, a mutual flame,
That long had stayed and called, before he came,
Impatient of delay, without one word,
To lose no further time, he fell aboard;
But griped so hard, he wounded what he loved,
While she, in anger, thus his heat reproved.
ceits, the verbal cross-purposes, and the turgid sentiment of those pieces are ridiculed in this satire with the happiest strokes of humour.
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